Not Just Another Nice Guy

“I am an alpha female who married a nice guy. It is really an ideal match for us both. He calms me… down, and I push him out of his comfort zone. I tried relationships with other men who were more like me, and it always ended epically terrible. Then I found this sweet soul who really doesn't have a nasty cell in his body. I'm super-lucky, because not just anyone would put up with my brashness.”

This quote was pulled from the comments section of Jezebel a couple of weeks ago, when a columnist ran a story about our book and sent her readers to take our Alpha/Beta Quiz. Soon, Refinery29 picked up the piece and sent more readers stampeding to the site. Before we knew it, the website crashed.

We took plenty of criticism from all these quiz-takers about the Alpha/Beta terminology we used in the book—ouch. But we’re tough, and we took it on the chin. However, something that Dr. Rhodes and I noticed were the wide misinterpretations of what we define as the “Beta” male, the “nice guy” many of us love to hate. Many women define a “nice guy” as a boring, wimpy, whiny, needy, loser-ish type without a shred of self-esteem who postures and puts women down because he needs to prove himself as a man. As one commenter put it: “Jealous of my success, bitter about his life, he needed constant coddling and fawning to feel good about himself, and was always seething underneath that he had to put forth ANY effort to be perceived as the good guy. Oh, and he never showed up emotionally.”

There are plenty of guys like this. (For the record, we describe those loserish types as Omegas, not as Betas). We’re not talking about them; what we are talking about are the kinds of solid guys who are not old-style Alphas—or Omegas—but who are emotionally available and aren’t threatened by strong women. That’s what we mean by Beta.

In our culture men historically have been trained and expected to be aggressive, competitive, and hierarchical. Male self-worth has been based on embodying those qualities and on being a successful breadwinner. But consider this: we’re living in a transitional moment in which huge cultural changes in gender dynamics are affecting women and men alike. For ages, the Alpha male/Beta female was the standard model for marriage. Today, as more and more women surge ahead in the professions and in income, the old model has become antique. Obsolete. Women have come into their own. They value their singular abilities and they have goals. They don’t need to be with a man who dominates them and calls the shots.

For a lifelong partnership, today’s Alpha woman (yes, for clarity, that’s the nomenclature we chose) does not need a competitor but a team player: a good, solid Beta male! And yes, there are plenty of them out there. We believe that if you keep your head on straight and generally apply yourself to finding a reliable, smart, collaborative, relationship-oriented kind of guy, you will greatly increase your chances of creating a fulfilling relationship.

The good Beta guy is NOT just another nice guy. And we’re not advocating that you settle for Mr. Just OK—that’s not good enough. We think it’s possible to find really, really good people out there. As one woman put it on the Jezebel thread, “I date a Beta male…he is incredibly sweet, thoughtful, sexy and great in the sack!”

There is only one missing detail I think. While modern women can be alpha, beta, or omega and be accepted by men and socially, men are considered losers if they are beta or omega, at least in N.A. To those men with such personality, either innate or due to poor parenting, this is a huge curse and life sentence. Life just isn't fair, is it?

The problem in the dating world is many men feels the need to act or pretend to be an Alpha Male. These men insist on appearing as the head of the household, making most of the important decisions and doing as little housework as possible. Eventually that catches up with them. Women who also work 40 hours a week aren't going to tolerate being submissive and doing the lion's share of parenting and housework just so their man can feel like a strong alpha male. Something has to give. 70% of divorces are file by women, and majority of women under 25 and over 50 don't wish to marry, I'm not even sure they want to be coupled up in a relationship either.

It is somewhat sad that you have adopted the term "Omega" for the "loser." I have always used this term for the real winner based on the actual intention of the Greek letter, not to mention its proliferation through math and science.

The alpha male may be aggressively first, the beta male may be resignedly secondary, but the Omega male? He's going to be there until the end.

I think this is a misgiving of Western society's obsession with the "first step" of a journey somehow, inexplicably, always being more important than the last. We've conditioned ourselves to continually run back to the beginning, each time, to see who's winning the race to take that "first step." Let the competitors argue over alpha vs beta, I'll take being the check-signing Omega owner any day, where the proverbial buck-stopping finality resides. Here is stasis, stability, resolution, and non-ambiguity.

What place does competition have in a peerless field? It's a truly beautiful thing to step out of that river.

Maybe a better term for the individuals you are referring to would be "delta," since this scientifically-recognized symbol for change is more apropros to the untethered, unbased, drift-in-the-wind emotionally/mentally/physically blank-canvas mentality of those who look to others to validate and/or create one's own individual character instead of establishing oneself as one of these other classifications.

Just another pathetic attempt by liberal women to try and malign and demonize men into a couple of categories to make themselves feel better.Yeah don't throw barbs and wonder why you get torn a new one for it ladies.These are the same female types frolicing about using the terms:fat shamer,slut shamer,misogynist,woman-hater,patriarchy etc etc etc and directing it at men for the least bit of critique.The same insecure women who were sooooooooooooooo outraged over Romney's "binders full of women" comment--those types.